Middle East Focus: Saudiization of International Research? An Offshore Saudi View………..

Arabia Deserta

Saudiization of International Research? An Offshore Saudi View………..

“The Saudiization of Islamic and Arab studies have become an international project managed by Saudi Arabia through research centers it established during the last two decades. It is not surprising that personalities with connections to intelligence services would adopt such a project and finance it, even be prominent among its output. This project was helped by the eagerness of educational centers, especially in the West, to get some of the Saudi petroleum surplus, especially after many Western governments reduced their contributions to these institutions. Saudi money became a source they can get in exchange for producing the research language and outcome that is in the interest of the state that provides the financing…….… Foreign universities are the beneficiaries of Saudi generosity which provides the income to a generation of intellectuals and academics. These same institution and universities in turn teach a new generation of Saudis themselves who pay more than three times the expenses of their local student-colleagues. While these centers and universities claim that they maintain their historic scientific standards and freedoms, yet receiving moneys from abroad, especially from the Saudi government, makes them lose much of their freedom and academic impartiality under pressures of the current economic hard times. Many researchers had their participations at international conferences were canceled because of opinions that did not match those of the public relations people…….. The Saudiization of international studies and research has become an integral part of this phase, the ‘public relations’ state that Saudi Arabia is now going through…………” Madawi al Rasheed (Saudi Academic in Exile).
(My translation, any errors are probably mine).

If I were a Saudi, and writing as she does, I would be in exile too. Much safer in London under the circumstances.
Cheers
mhg

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